


Lake of Fire

by boticelli



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Bunker Ending (Far Cry), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Friends to enemies to friends to enemies to friends to lovers, Grief/Mourning, Hey Dep how's your dead husband, Not a lot though, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Still following the story, Suicidal Thoughts, Time Skips, Widowed, briefly mentioned, pacifist, she's got a lot going on, some canon divergence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-03-28
Packaged: 2021-04-24 23:55:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22247911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boticelli/pseuds/boticelli
Summary: Where do bad folks go when they die?The words "I'm sorry" rest on her lips as she clicks the handcuffs closed and she looks in his eyes for some sort of forgiveness, but the only look he wears on his face is a smug one, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his lips, his eyes staring straight into her soul. Somehow, the Father knows that this was inevitable.
Relationships: Deputy/Her dead Husband, Female Deputy | Judge (Far Cry)/Original Male Character(s), Female Deputy | Judge/Jacob Seed, Female Deputy | Judge/Joseph Seed, Joseph Seed/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 80





	1. The Worst Possible Outcome

Her heart beat heavy against her chest.

_badum_

_badum_

Sweat dripped from her brow, stinging the gash on her cheek, drying plasma pulling her skin taut as Rook wiped tears and blood away from her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. It hurt. It all fucking hurt. Her muscles cried out in pain as the adrenaline ran out, leaving her begging and praying to every god there was to not let her body give up. 

Not now. 

"No one is coming to save you." 

She whispered it over and over again like a mantra as her hands tore away at the moss and the dirt, struggling to find a foot-hold as she climbed up the hillside. The Father's words rang true in her head: _nobody_ would come save her. Rook was a loner, with a husband six feet under in a cemetery outside Fall's End, a father who wouldn't acknowledge her existence in Tennessee, and a mother she'd never even known. 

Nobody had ever come to save her. 

So she supposed it was up to her to save herself. Sounded easy enough, but goddamn she was having a hard time justifying herself as she wiped the blood from the cultist she'd just clobbered to death off on her jeans.

_"Rook, you're going to have to cuff him," Burke says as she takes a step back, both intimidated and entranced by Joseph Seed: a man with whom she had once shared silence after running into him during one of her sleepless nights. There'd been no preaching then, no attempt at conversion. Just sitting silently at a diner counter, staring blankly into a cup of decaf. _

_Burke's hands tug at her own, urging her to cuff the man, his siblings staring at her from behind him. They're different from the first time she met them, no playful smiles on their faces. By no means is she friends with them, but she holds no hatred for this family. _

_The words "I'm sorry" rest on her lips as she clicks the handcuffs closed and she looks in his eyes for some sort of forgiveness, but the only look he wears on his face is a smug one, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his lips, his eyes staring straight into her soul. Somehow, the Father knows that this was inevitable. _

_How?_

How did that man know that it would be this way? It wasn't fucking fair. Not to her, not to the poor assholes who were roped in on his bullshit. 

"Hello?" She called out as she made her way to a trailer in the woods, the sight of cultists arming themselves in view, her hands in the air as proof she wasn't going to draw the pistol at her side, "listen, I just want to get home, I don't want to bother you or—" 

But they didn't listen and instead, Rook found herself narrowly avoiding getting shot in the head, rolling behind a mayo-white pickup. Quietly, she drew her pistol from her side and racking the slide, shot both the men who'd attacked her square in the forehead. Good to know they'd kill people who had no quarrel with them. 

Surely Joseph didn't want this? People killing innocents in his name, people who had no interest in the cult and who just wanted to live peacefully, right? Did he ever go to sleep at night and wonder where he'd gone wrong? For her own sake, she wished he did. 

Killing had never been easy for Rook, even after four years in the army, two of them in Iraq. Faces she'd seen haunted her dreams, even the ones she hadn't killed. Most of her troop was there for the glory of serving their country, but for Rook? She didn't have any other option. She'd been a wild child; the bashing mailboxes with a baseball bat, getting high in the school bathroom, couch-surfing from house to house kind of kid. 

Funny how she wound up working for the sheriff. 

With a heavy sigh, the weight of the world on her shoulders, she stepped into the small trailer in hopes of finding a moment of peace. 

But instead, she was greeted being pinned against the wall, a hand around her throat. 

"B-Burke!" She choked out, tears forming at the corner of her eyes and fists pounding against his chest.

The grip around her throat was released, but he kept her pinned, "Rook? Jesus." He took a step back, giving her space to breathe, "glad you made it out oka-"

"What the hell was that back there?" Mercer spat at him, her tone dripping thick with venom, "what the fuck kind of mentality was that? Leaving me in a burning fucking helicopter? Jesus Christ, is that some sort of fucking revenge for not going to _dinner_?"

"Listen, I-"

"_Listen_?" She scoffed as he let her go, pulling out the knife she kept at her hip and jabbing it in his direction, "you expect me to listen? You fucking heard Nancy, right? She's _with_ them." Mercer lowered her hand and sheathed the knife. "I-i… I just." 

Instead of continuing, she turned away from the man, drawing her sidearm and ejecting the magazine, counting the rounds she had left. Four. Not great. 

Cameron Burke had been a thorn in her side ever since he'd come to Hope County, his pea-sized brain either ignoring or not getting the fact that she was still a new widow and asking her out to dinner the second day he was in town. 

Idiot. 

She knew it wasn't fair of her to think that he'd left her behind because of that, but what else could she do? Someone had to be blamed, so why not him? 

Following Burke to the truck parked in the carport, Rook listened carefully for the sound of tires against gravel and that tell-tale sound of their hymns being blasted on the stereo. As vigilant as she was, her head still felt clouded, her mind playing the events from the past few hours over and over again like a record stuck on its player. 

"-ook?" Burke's hand was on her shoulder, thumb idly drawing circles, "keep a sharp eye out." She shook free from him, his touch, whether innocent or not, uncomfortable. 

"Got it. Head for my place in the Whitetails. It's not too far and I've got a radio, we can figure out what's going on there." Quickly, she cranked the window down, giving the Marshall the go ahead to start the engine. For a moment, it was nothing but the hum of the motor, but out of the silence came the blaring songs on the radio and then chaos. Voices called out, directing others towards the disturbance. 

Her heart pounded against her chest as Burke slammed his foot on the throttle, tires spinning in the dirt beneath them. Like a whip, they shot out of the cover of the woods and onto the road. Sticking her head out the window, she watched as headlights started closing in on them as if it were something out of an 80's horror movie, except it was just the two of them against hundreds of Pamela Voorhees and Michael Meyers with a touch of those Killbots from _Chopping Mall_. 

The world moved too fast for Rook as she shot the tires out from the trucks following her and Burke, but as one came tumbling down, two more replaced them. No end in sight until she felt the US Marshall spin out of control, that same, familiar floating sensation that made her stomach turn overcoming her. 

It happened so quickly and so slow all at once. As if she had escaped her own body and was watching this as a bystander. Her head turned towards Burke as she watched him shout out a number of curses before finally hitting the ice cold of waters below them. 

And it was the strangest thing, Rook chuckled to herself as she watched Burke leave her for dead the second time in a day, not even bothering to help her out. 

_Shoulda let him take me out to dinner._ she told herself as she floated to the surface, her eyes slowly closing. 

What a terrible note to end on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! I've decided to rewrite this fic with some minor and major changes to make it A. Easier for me to write. B. Easier for you to follow the plot. And C. Because I want to. 
> 
> Please enjoy and leave a comment if you'd like!


	2. Rally first.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we learn a bit about the mystery that is Junior 'Deputy' Rook.

A week after Dutch fished her out of the River, Rook found herself pulling back into the driveway of her and her husband's modest little cabin in the middle of the woods. 

For a moment, she could forget what had happened: it was almost as if it was just another morning where she was coming home from the bar, drunk and dizzy and sad. Except she was unfortunately sober now and she was scared what would happen to her if she did get drunk. 

Rook was lucky her home was hidden off the main roads. She and her husband both shared a distaste for visitors and other than the occasional deer or hunter, it was quiet and she could forget that the world existed for awhile. 

By some small miracle, her keys were still in her pocket and not at the bottom of the river or in the charred remains of a helicopter, but as per usual, she didn’t need them. Already having been running late for her shift that day, like a fool, Rook had left the door unlocked as she so often did. Staci and Joey liked showing up unannounced with a twelve-pack and a wrestling or MMA Pay-Per-View, but other than that, nobody really knew she was out here, so why did it matter if she locked her door or not?

Pushing the door open, she carefully inspected her living room and after deciding that nothing was out of place, she quickly closed the door behind her before she slumped down against the wood and buried her face in her hands, sobbing, the night she tried to arrest Joseph finally crashing down on her.

What had happened to everyone? Joey was with John, but what about the rest? 

She allowed herself a minute to cry before she pulled herself back up and went to the bedroom where her radio was kept. 

And there it was: a wilted bouquet of those Bliss flowers and a copy of Joseph's book with a note attached sitting plainly in the middle of her bed. 

She should've locked her fucking door. 

As if the devil himself was in her, Rook immediately began searching in every room of the small house, in every closet and every crevice until she was certain that there wasn't hide nor hair of the Seed siblings in her home. 

Feeling particularly cheeky, she announced to the empty room, "John, if you put up any cameras, I _will_ find them, and I will mount your ass on my wall." It didn't make her feel any better, but at least calmed her down for the time being. 

Bastards. 

Kicking her boots off and throwing her clothes in the hamper, she drew a hot shower, eager to wash off the grime and muck. As accommodating as Dutch was, his facilities were lacking and she didn't feel particularly comfortable showering in the bunker. 

As she waited for the water to heat up, she sat herself down by the radio and began fiddling with the dials: 

"This is Rook, anyone out there?" 

Silence. 

"June Rook here, do I have anyone?" 

Then, static. She almost breathed a sigh of relief. 

"So, June." He stated matter-of-factly, the sound of her own name making her cringe, "by God's grace, you survived." 

"Did John put up cameras in my house?" 

Joseph chuckled dryly, but she found no humor in its tone, "it's a peace offering." 

Rook shuffled in her seat, microphone in hand, "Peace? I think you may need a dictionary, Seed. You broke into my house."

"Your door was unlocked, deputy." 

Tears welled up in her eyes, "I'm not a deputy, Joseph. I'm a fucking high school gym teacher. Nate was the deputy until you killed him. I was just an extra body." 

"What happened to Brother Nate was—." 

"_DON'T_ call him that." Her heart rate was elevated again and she found herself clenching her fist tightly, her buckles growing white and when she inspected her fingernails, she'd drawn blood. Her husband was her sore spot. 

"We loved him, June, whether you believe it or not. You would be welcomed with open arms if you joined my flock, you'd have purpose again. Time is running out." 

_Purpose again._

The months following her husband's death, she found herself wandering aimlessly around Hope County, staring into the distance, hoping that she'd see Nate come round the trees, that goofy smile on his face, flowers or something else in his hand for her. Rook hadn't known until she saw Joseph at his funeral that he had devoted a small amount of his days to the Project, teaching the recruits how to live off the land and survive if the world around them failed to provide for them. 

They'd lived together dor five years and he hadn't once told her. She had always known he was religious, and she respected that while he respected her agnosticism. They were a good match, proof that you didn't always have to believe in the same thing to be in love. 

Joseph had found her staring off into the freezing, crystal clear waters on one of her many midnight walks, debating if it was worth joining Nate in the afterlife. Her tears had dried up long ago and Rook felt as if she'd just become an empty husk of a woman, her other half suddenly gone. 

"Nate was a good guy, you know." She'd told him as she sat herself down on the bank of the river, "wanted to help others. Keep 'em safe. It's why he was a deputy. He loved his home and he wanted to keep it safe." Joseph had remained silent as she felt him sit beside her. "I blamed him for joining your movement. Blamed you," Rook took a deep breath, "but Jacob told me at his funeral he'd been teaching survival, how he'd helped your people become more than just..." She struggled to find the right word, "He… he just wanted to make sure y'all were safe, didn't he?" 

His hand had gripped her shoulder gently, the feeling of his fingertips against her burning as if he emitted this holy sort of fire. "He loved you very much, June Rook." 

"Was I not enough?" She looked back at him, hoping to find some sort of wisdom other than what he preached every day. 

He pulled her close, "sometimes we want to help others beyond the confines of our own homes. You're a capable woman, June, he had nothing to teach you."

Oddly enough, it helped. 

Rook found herself letting go, easing herself against Joseph as she found tears she'd thought had dried long ago welling up at the corners of her eyes again. 

Joseph, though she hated the following he'd created and the way he saw himself as a shepherd guiding a flock, wasn't the demon some made him out to be. Rook had a complicated relationship with religion to begin with, and the Project wasn't anything different. She decided that day: he was a good man deep down. Flawed, but good. 

Who wasn't, though? 

"Thank you." 

"For what? Simply consoling a grieving widow? It's part of my calling, June." 

She sat up, wiping her eyes and nodoubtedly, smearing mascara everywhere, "for helping me. For treating me like a person and not a follower." 

He smiled, pulling her head towards his and pressing his forehead against hers, like she'd seen him do so many times, "your husband was like a brother. You're like family. Should you ever need a place in this world, you will always have a place in mine." 

_Why was she suddenly upset with him for calling Nate a brother?_

Because Rook needed someone to blame. 

"I just want to be left alone, Joseph," she replied on the radio after what felt like an eternity, "I don't want to fight your family."

Nothing but silence answered her, which was answer enough. Resist or follow, those were her options. Rook sighed and stood, pulling her hair out of its braid and giving it a shake. 

Rally first, then come up with a game plan. Nate had taught her that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reposted due to some major edits that were made! 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and hit me up with see comments!


	3. Haze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June meets Faith and Burke tries to pull a move on her.

All she'd been able to do for the past four weeks was read the note Joseph had left on her bed over and over again, even as she tried to settle down for a moment of peace, with Boomer and Sharky snoring behind her. 

_Times like these require us to make difficult decisions. Should you choose to walk the path, we will welcome you with open arms and you will be a part of our family._

Rook desperately wanted to belong to something again, one of the few things she'd missed about the army. There wasn't anything quite like having a brother and sister in arms who'd watch your back so long as you had theirs. She'd be lying if she said she hadn't considered taking Joseph's offer. But wasn't it just her giving up and crawling into the arms of those who drove her husband to his death? 

Loneliness was a strange feeling: at some point, she probably thought that some moment in her past had been the loneliest she’d ever felt and then again, when her husband had died, she felt the loneliest she’d ever felt. But now? With no cell phone signal and no word from others, having no idea whether the people you’d come to care for were alive or dead? This. This truly had to be the loneliest she’d ever felt, even with the others who stood behind her and trusted her. 

God, she missed Nate. 

Rook had lived in a lot of places, but none of them had felt like home. She hadn't figured that Hope County would feel like home when she had first rolled into town, but somehow, it had dug its claws into her. It'd become home quicker than she'd imagined. 

Once upon a time, even the Seed family somehow made it feel like home. Jacob had given her a ride home when her car broke down and fixed her sink, John became that strange neighbor she'd find at her door and inexplicably end up with him cooking dinner for her, Faith had consoled her after she'd broke down in tears in the middle of a store one day, and Joseph, she'd shared a comfortable silence with on the many mornings they'd run into each other on the County's trails, both of them fed up with being unable to sleep even long before Nate had died. 

They'd been friends. Neighbors. As weird as it sounded to be friends with a murderous cult of personality and his equally deadly siblings. It felt like a terrible dream, that one day she'd wake up and have just imagined Burke coming with that warrant. 

Sharky stirred next to her, his eyes fluttering open, "everything okay there, teach?" 

"Yeah, too many thoughts." She folded up the letter and tucked it away in her shirt pocket, the words burning a hole in her chest. 

He patted the small space on the deflated air mattress next to him, "can't kick Peggie ass all tired and shit. I had a buddy named Scottie who once stayed up a whole week without sleep, playing some video game or something and just kept pounding Red Lines. Dude went crazy." 

She complied, pulling her hair out of her haphazard bun and scooted herself over to the mattress, the floorboards of the old cabin creaking under her weight. "Try not 'ta punch me in the jaw tonight though, chica." 

Chuckling, she settled down and closed her eyes, hoping that sleep would eventually take her. 

Rook seemed to be skilled in picking up unlikely friends— if the Seeds weren't proof enough, then her clinging to Boshaw like a spider monkey or having a fucking bear following her or swapping dirty jokes with Adelaide should've been enough. She'd been oddly tickled by Sharky back when she caught him setting the bleachers on fire at the high school, the way he ran off like a boy in trouble, though he was only two or so years older than she. It felt inevitable that they'd be friends. 

He didn't ask her too many questions and that was perfect for her. Sharky knew about Nate. Hell, her husband had arrested him more times than she could count. It was an uncomplicated friendship for complicated times. 

Sometimes, as she drifted off to sleep, she thought about her dad, the preacher in Ocoee, East Tennessee. Funnily enough, not too far from the Seed's homeland of Georgia. June wondered what he was doing: probably still smoking two packs a day, eating beanie weenies, and watching whatever was on TV Land that night, wondering how his daughter wound up to be such a mess. 

Maybe he was dead. 

Not that it gave her any relief. As piss poor of a human as he was, he was still the man who raised her. She hoped he was okay. 

She truly did. 

"You look like a precious child when you sleep, June." 

That wasn't Sharky. 

Rook hadn't even realized she was awake, or that she'd gone to sleep— she kept looking around her to find her friends, but all she could see for miles and miles on end was just a field of bliss. 

"He's safe, still sleeping like a baby," the voice laughed, like bells chiming. 

Faith. 

Sitting up, she tried to come to her senses, finding a hand in front of her to lift herself up. Faith's hand. "How did I—" 

Faith interrupted, her voice soft: "sleepwalking. I found you here, sprawled out in the field of bliss, as if you didn't have a care in the world." The herald tucked a stray hair behind Rook's ear, humming a quiet song, "You were so peaceful, laying there, so we came to watch over you." 

"We?" Rook looked around, finding nothing but the green expanse before her, grass and bliss ebbing and flowing in the wind like the ocean's tides. 

"Cameron and I," Faith smiled sweetly and innocently, standing up on the tips of her toes and planted a kiss on Rook's forehead , "he's told me so much about you. About how great of a woman you are, how," she looked her up and down, "absolutely breathtaking you looked as you tied up your hair in the locker room." She ran a hand through Rook's long, tangled locks, her dishwater blonde falling neatly back down; as if she'd combed, washed, and dried it all in that moment, "how all he wanted was a moment to give you the world, and how sad he was when you said no." 

"I can see why everyone here is so taken with you, this mysterious woman from Tennessee—" the herald whispered in her ear, gently laying her back down into the field of bliss. Rook could just lay here for days and days and days, "—I can see it in the Father's eyes, John's, even stern, old Jacob…" she stood, twirling on the ball of her foot, "but you probably already knew that." Faith giggled again, humming the same tune. 

Rook turned her head, feeling the weight of another person beside her— and for a moment, she could imagine it was Nate, but as she felt fingers caress her cheek and lips, the dream was shattered. 

"Just give me a chance," she recoiled from him as he spoke to her, his hands desperate for another touch, "let me show you what I can be for you. I could be _so_ good for you." 

Scrambling to her feet, the world spinning around her, she tried to find an out, some way to get away. 

"June," he was behind her now, as if Faith had allowed him to travel in the blink of an eye. 

"G-get away from me, Burke." 

He grabbed her shoulders, pulling her in close, "walk the path with me." 

Burke pulled her along through the fields of bliss, up mountains, across rivers, until she found herself staring down at Hope County in a green haze, wind so strong it felt as if it could knock her over. 

"June, we were so wrong." She felt arms wrap around her, Burke's face buried in the crook of her neck. Weak, she had no other choice but to ease into him as her legs gave out. How far had she walked and climbed under the influence of the bliss? 

"The father loves us. He wants us to survive, to love and live. All you need to do is take a leap of Faith." He turned her around, grasping her by her shoulders as he planted a kiss on her lips, desperate for any sort of affection from her. Something Rook did not want; it sickened her. 

Regaining her footing, she pushed him away from her, taking a step back. 

"I can't believe you!" She shouted, her voice barely registering over the sound of the wind, "you used her influence on you to try to take me?" 

Burke took a step towards her, arms spread out, a sickly smile on his face as she took a step and then another and another back until—

she started floating. 

Until she didn't. 

Until she met the hard ground, the haze from the bliss overtaking her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to retell the initial meeting with Faith from a more personal perspective to my Deputy. I'm excited to get the next chapter out! I'm enjoying my little journey through canon divergence. 
> 
> As always! Thank you for reading and feel free to comment!


End file.
